20VC 062: Shaking Up London's VC Industry with Fede Pirzio-Biroli, Founder @ Playfair Capital

Fede Pirzio-Biroli is Founder @ Playfair Capital, a leading investor in seed level, technology based startups. Fede founded Playfair Capital from his first investment in December of 2010 and the portfolio quickly grew to 20 investments by the end of 2012, including the likes of Duedil, AppearHere and On Device Research. During this period, Fede was an angel in residence at White Bear Yard. After working closely with Passion Capital, he built the Playfair Capital team and moved into Warner Yard, Playfair’s current home. Prior to Playfair, he spent several years in Africa working for the UN, Oxfam and PharmaSecure, after which he lobbied government and large aid organisations to increase the transparency of aid flows.

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In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Fede made his move into angel investing and then transitioned to form his own fund?

2.) What is the mission at Playfair? What is the average ticket size? Does Playfair have any preferred sectors?

3.) What do startups need to have to get the Playfair stamp of approval? What are Playfair looking for?

4.) How has Fede seen the seed funding environment change in London?

5.) How does Fede and Playfair stave off competition for the ‘hot’ startups looking to raise VC money?

6.) What benefits do founders get for working in a co-working space? How important is it for VCs to offer this service?

7.) How does Fede create a united company culture in a co-working space with so many different companies?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:

Fede’s Fave Book: The Circle by David Eggers

Fede Fave Newsletter or Blog: Dojo, AngelList

Fede’s Most Recent Investment: Knytton (Techstars London W14)

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Fede on Twitter right here!